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Our ram, Beau, is a fine looking Arapawa with impressive curly horns. Gentle with humans, loving to be scratched behind the ears or patted. With other animals he’s all aggression. When sheep and cattle are in the same paddock, Beau chases the steers. If they stand still, he goes for a head butt, springing up with all four legs to reach. It’s hilarious, the poor steers don’t know what to make of him, but it’s too likely someone will get hurt. We no longer put steers and sheep together.

Beau when he was very young, he’s twice the size now with fine curly horns – I must get a more recent portrait!

With no steers to intimidate, he takes on fence posts. In his tussle with the new gate post (see last month) he somehow unhooked the stay. The post itself was then easy prey. Battering it into submission, he sprung the latch, the little locking ring is now on the outside. I hadn’t got round to replacing it, but hoped if the steers (who are now there) pushed the latch would just hold firmer.

I forgot that they use tongues to grasp and pull long grass, or given the chance branches from the bush. They’re remarkably dexterous for creatures without fingers. It took a bit of practice, but what else have cattle to do with their time? Bruce unlatched the gate and the steers had free access to two paddocks. So I tied it with baler twine.

One good nudge and his 500Kg could easily snap it, but that would be cheating! He plans to suck his way out. He’s licking the twine and it’s getting thinner. If I don’t get to Farmlands for a new latch they’ll be through again…

As an ex-townie it surprised me how many conversations here concern fences. I’m learning about fences though. When I tried to follow potatoes with brassicas for winter, no sooner were my seedlings planted than rabbits (who ignored the poisonous potatoes) ripped them out.

It’s not just rabbits, chooks strip vege patches bare. We thought a “raised” bed would deter them. They had the bed raked clean within hours of my first planting. Two-strand wire didn’t deter them. Now we have chicken wire on stout uniposts, and so far it’s working…

As a townie, I naïvely thought farm fences kept animals in. Deer fencing is tall because deer jump, cattle fences are low but strong because that keeps cattle in… The neighbour’s bull taught us differently. He visited our steers, teaching them to fence-crash. Watching a half-tonne steer clear a gate and charge off into the wild green yonder, you know fences encourage animals to stay home. They cannot make them.

Not the fence I built but a properly rustic one we saw when on holiday down the forgotten world highway

An electric outrigger may stop cattle, but electric doesn’t work with sheep. For a year or so, nine wire with battens seemed enough, our little flock stayed home. Till Harry, our Wiltshire wether, got spooked. We’re not sure how he did it. He jumps well, but he’s a heavy hogget, and he’s pretty big, so could he squeeze between tight wires?

As I’ve learned, I’ve become more ambitious, from touching up fences with electric wires to building my own. A big flat paddock divided in two. Beau, our Arapawa ram, had other ideas. He took a dislike to the gate post. First he dislodged the stay, then the post itself (helped by all that tension on the wires) was easily butted into submission.

Even in a very small space there’s room for tomatoes, beans, lettuce and more

Different people grow their own vegetables, or fruit, for different reasons. For some it’s crispness and taste, nothing beats tender garden-fresh salads, “truss tomatoes” from the shop can’t quite capture the vivid fresh smell and taste of ones ripened outside your window. Others like to know they are not eating chemicals, or at least what chemicals they are eating. There’s also the satisfaction of knowing that you are providing for your own basic needs.

Likewise everyone has different ideas of scale. Some start small, a pot or two of lettuces and parsley on the deck, or even window-sill. Others are extremists. A couple of years before “The Good Life”, I dug up the lawns of our small-town quarter-acre, and planted a huge range of veges.

Whatever your reasons, and whatever the scale of your “plot”, sharing ideas, triumphs and failures helps. Back in the 70s, I learned so much and avoided many silly mistakes by listening to the “old guy” across the road who had been growing his own since before the war.

It still helps to chat with others, and since our climate (We reckon it’s 2 degrees cooler than Barkes Corner, where we are. What’s your estimate?) and soil are different from what they have in town, it makes sense to meet others locally. That’s why the “Food Growers Group” that we have been part of for a couple of years now was started. As well as sharing ideas and experience over a cuppa monthly, we get to see other people’s patches, and we often share seedlings as well as failures and successes. It’s a great idea and worth doing elsewhere.

OK, I’m sorry, this post is not about how to eat loads of fat and sugar yet not lose your youthful slenderness (or indeed any other “first-world problems”) it’s about baking with reduced oppression.

Most trade allows the rich and powerful to oppress the poor and weak. Trade ensures that the rich get richer, and (being impersonal) does not care if the poor get poorer. It is quite clear if you track almost any product grown in the Majority World that the price paid to the producer is peanuts compared to the profit paid to the sales and distribution entrepreneurs (i.e. “middle men/women”), it’s even peanuts compared to the wages paid to factory workers in richer places that convert the product into goods we buy.

FairTrade (and other schemes but they are the best known) seek to redress this balance by ensuring a decent price gets paid to producers.

Now to the “guilt free baking” part 🙂 The Big Fair Bake is a competition that is promoting Fair Trade. Here’s what to do:

If you are a baker – enter.

If you eat and enjoy other people’s baking – get them to enter.

If you have a blog, website, use Facebook, Google+ etc. – make a link so your ‘friends’ can see.

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (yes, that is 1.5 tsp don’t stint the vanilla if like me you make these with nuts, of course if you use chocolate chips you could substitute almond essence)

1/4 teaspoon salt

Zap in food processor till well mixed, then add:

1 cup all-purpose flour

Briefly mix (very briefly in the machine or a bit more vigorously if by hand 😉 Then mix these in by hand, or use other “extras” (choc chips, other nuts, crystalised ginger…)

1 cup wallnuts chopped

Roll into small balls and squash them on a lined baking sheet, they won’t rise or spread much in cooking. Bake at 170C for c.15 mins turning the sheet at half-time.

Be patient, though they are delicious warm and crumbly they are almost better when (nearly) cool. Since this is a quick recipe it only makes a few, to eat at one sitting. So you had better not copy me and be home alone whe you bake them, I said they were quick, easy and delicious, I did not say they were healthy 😉

Of course, though clotted cream is delicious on its own, on biscuits (especially slightly soft ginger nuts) or with just about anything sweet or semi-sweet you care to name, the absolute best way to eat it is as a Devonshire Cream Tea. No! Any Kiwis reading this who believe a Devon Cream Tea can be approximated using whipped cream, thickened cream or some other Ersatz product – forget it! It can’t for a Devonshire Cream Tea (or even its rival and near approximation a Cornish Cream Tea) you must have proper clotted cream. (Even the stuff they sell in tins and jars that comes from factories is a mere approximation to the real thing.

Here’s how you make a quick modern version. (The real thing is made in big enamel basins over a water bath, using fresh raw cream.)

Making clotted cream

Take a bottle of “Fresh Cream” from the supermarket.

Pour it into an oven proof bowl or casserole that will allow the quantity you have to fill it 3-6cms deep

Put it in the oven at 80C (or if you are not sure of your thermostat maybe 70C for longer)

Be patient

…be very patient

Gradually the delicious “clots” will form as a skin on the cream

When you can be patient no longer (or after 8 hours or so) scoop off the clotted cream into a serving bowl

Nb. don’t worry if some ordinary cream is mixed with the clots the variability of texture and taste is part of the joy (part that mass-produced cream, in these days of standardised homogenised industrial dairying, cannot really deliver).

[PS the comment below asking about clotted cream icecreams prompts me to add this note: If you are careful in scooping off only the skin you will end up with a very hard homogeneous product like commercial clotted cream. The ideal is to scoop up some of the runny cream as well each time, giving a good approximation of the texture of real farmhouse cream 🙂 and the extra benefit of both greater spreadability and a slightly more economical product!]

There is considerable debate between those who put the jam on top of the cream as decoration, and those (perhaps because they value lower calories over taste, heretics!) who use the cream as decoration – provided there are approximately equal loads of cream and jam (in this ecumenical and tolerant age) either can be permitted 😉

If you don’t have a good recipe for scones, and I had no need of one before I discovered the secret of making clotted cream 🙂 here’s one adapted from Allyson Gofton.

While I’ve been here in Sri Lanka by a crude meal count I have not managed to be a “Repentant Carnivore”. In fact even including breakfasts I have only eaten one Vegan meal – breakfast on Sunday I made for myself, Marmite in hot water and some bananas 😉

Every other meal included meat, fish or eggs. Even today, a Buddhist holiday when Sri Lankans eat no meat, meals included fish or eggs.

And yet… Rice and curry (perhaps the Sri Lankan staple) is mainly rice, with some veges and a curry sauce with a small piece of fish or chicken or an egg. Biriyani similarly managed loads of flavour from rice with spices veges and fruit with a small piece of meat. Modern Western meals are stuffed with meat, cheese, eggs, fish… and see the carbs and veges as secondary, Fish and Chips rather than Rice and Curry.

We need to rethink how we cook. Work out ways to do more with less (at least less of those high demand animal protein rich products). Our ancestors did it, a “real” Cornish Pasty had half the meat a modern one does, and was just as filling and probably better for us…

A bobby calf. Since he was born male he will be taken away the day of his birth so humans can drink his milk (from Veganism is the Future)

We bought a great job lot of books (gardening and vegetarian cooking) on TradeMe. They will be really useful as we extend the vege patch and should provide a different range of recipes. However, even a first look at the recipe books reveals how much milk, cheese and eggs Vegetarians habitually use. Unlike Vegans (who require no animals to be killed or mistreated) or even moderate Carnivores (who only require a few), Vegetarianism on a large scale requires massive cruelty to animals.

NZ Farmers’ Weekly “anticipated 1.8 million bobby calves processed this winter”. 1“Processed” here means animals just a few days old being herded into cattle trucks and shipped to the slaughterhouse.

For cows to produce milk, they have to give birth to a calf every year. Most calves are separated from the cows within twelve hours of birth to reduce the risk of disease, and most do not stay on the farm for long….

Bobby calves are housed together and fed colostrum, milk or milk replacer, usually only once a day. They are then sold, mostly for slaughter, at five days old. Products from processed calves include young veal for human consumption, valuable hides for leather and byproducts for the pharmaceutical industry….

Because they will very soon go to slaughter, bobby calves often do not get the same standard of housing, cleanliness, care or attention as the valuable replacement heifers or the bull calves being reared for veal. For their health and welfare, bobby calves should be fed twice a day and be housed in sheltered, clean and dry environments with room to lie down on suitable bedding.

A moderate carnivore who eats only a little cheese and does not drink much milk probably requires few if any Bobby Calves to be slaughtered, we feed them up for a year or two and then eat them. But vegetarians do not eat beef, but they do drink milk and eat cheese.

It’s much the same with eggs, even the most moderate egg eater produces some cockerels that somebody has to eat. At least in their case a free range cockerel gets a decent life before the pot…

I don’t know what you make of it, but my conclusion is clear:

Vegans do not harm animals

Moderate carnivores slaughter a few animals, but after they have had a decent life and are grown up

Vegetarians slaughter loads of baby calves and their treatment seems cruel and malicious

If any Vegetarian can defend their morality I’d be delighted to hear it. Until then I can only plead with you, if you don’t like meat then learn to eat Vegan!

This recipe is as quick and easy as it gets. Just turn the oven to 170C, get a muffin tin (I love the bendy silicone ones, so easy to get the muffins out 🙂 and/or some paper muffin cups. Sieve the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl:

2.5 cups flour

5 rounded tsp baking powder

1/2-1 cup cacao (depending on how chocolatey you like them)

1 cup sugar (I use dark brown for a lovely warm sweetness)

1/2-1 cup chocolate chips or cut up chocolate bar

Then mix lightly and make a “well”. Pour in:

1 cup milk

2/3 cup oil

1 egg

Stir, as gently as possible, till mixed. Spoon into the baking tin/cups. Makes 12 middling size muffins. Sprinkle with sugar or almond slivers. Bake about 15-20 mins till dry but still soft (not moist and squishy). If this batch are dry try again cooking less, till perfect or till you need a break from chocolate 😉

Do use FairTrade cacao and chocolate, so they don’t depend on slave (or near-slave) child labour. And try to keep some for tomorrow (for the sake of your own weight)!